mindspill

Quagmire

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 22:54:47 GMT

Until a couple of weeks ago I thought that the word Quagmire was a surname. That's what happens when you start taking Family Guy too seriously. Well, it turns out that quagmire is a word which means:-

soft miry land that shakes or yields under the foot
a difficult, precarious, or entrapping position

From Merriam-Webster

Talking about Family Guy related matter. Check out this clip from the new series. It's an absolute pearl!

I'm looking for a word ...

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:03:49 GMT

... to describe the case when you like something, then they change it to improve it, but instead of improving it, they spoil it. Like when you really like a bag of chips and they come with an improved recipe and screw it up. Or when Microsoft release a new version of office and nothing is where it used to be. That sort of thing.

I don't know if there's a word to describe this, but maybe there's a phrase or an idiom or something. I'm quite sure there's a slang term for it, but can't seem to find any.

Top 50 Oxymorons

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:55:30 GMT

50. Act naturally
49. Found missing
48. Resident alien
47. Advanced BASIC
46. Genuine imitation
45. Airline Food
44. Good grief
43. Same difference
42. Almost exactly
41. Government organization
40. Sanitary landfill
39. Alone together
38. Legally drunk
37. Silent scream
36. British fashion
35. Living dead
34. Small crowd
33. Business ethics
32. Soft rock
31. Butt Head
30. Military Intelligence
29. Software documentation
28. New York culture
27. New classic
26. Sweet sorrow
25. Childproof
24. "Now, then ..."
23. Synthetic natural gas
22. Christian Scientists
21. Passive aggression
20. Taped live
19. Clearly misunderstood
18. Peace force
17. Extinct Life
16. Temporary tax increase
15. Computer jock
14. Plastic glasses
13. Terribly pleased
12. Computer security
11. Political science
10. Tight slacks
9. Definite maybe
8. Pretty ugly
7. Twelve-ounce pound cake
6. Diet ice cream
5. Rap music
4. Working vacation
3. Exact estimate
2. Jumbo Shrimp
And the Number one top OXY-Moron
1. Microsoft Works

Can you add to the list of synonyms?

Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:54:16 GMT

This is my contribution to blog trash for the day. If anybody wants to use this post in one of those articles about how bad blog content can be, and the damage blogging is doing to respectable (thanks Geek Baazar) journalists, please help yourself. Use me. I need some promotion.

In these last 2 days I found two uncommon references to testicles on the web:-

Cajones - a vulgar Spanish word for testicles. Can't remember where I saw it. It was mispelt in the post so I couldn't find it again.

Gonads - Found in the post Testicle punching is the way forward by Twenty Major.

Other more common synonyms:-
   - balls
   - bollocks
   - nuts

Dottian variants:-
   eggs - il-bajd
   chandeliers - il-fanali
   marbles - il-bubbuni

How many of the 100 words you should know, do you know?

Sat, 28 Jul 2007 01:17:38 GMT

The editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries published the list of 100 words every high school graduate should know. You can find a list of the words here.

Matthew Baldwin, the writer of one of may favourite blogs defective yeti, wrote a small application you can use to test yourself a number of these words. Words Test.

Also, if you're a word lover you probably like scrabble. You might want to check out this Blitz scrabble.

Two words of the day (serendipity & inane)

Tue, 26 Jun 2007 18:47:48 GMT

Word: serendipity
Meaning: an aptitude for making desireable discoveries by accident (Dictionary.com)
Usage: Social Serendipity from MIT's Reality Mining project.
Synonyms: knowledgeable, scholastic, intellectual

Word: inane
Meaning: 1. lacking sense, significance or ideas 2. empty or void (Dictionary.com)
Usage: Inanity of statements (from this comic here).
Synonyms: empty, daft, absurd

Jam and Jelly

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:41:22 GMT

I just went on a brief blog hiatus. Days have been quite full recently and frankly the last thing I felt like doing after a day's work was get back on the computer and write. I've started reading loads and watching the odd movie instead of spending time online.

Last week I was reading a post by Simply Geeky about Peanut Butter Sandwiches and Jelly. Yeah, peanut butter and jelly as if anything can get more disgusting than that. I was so confused with the post that I kept reading most of the comments to figure out what's the story with peanut butter and jelly. It was after wikipedia came to the rescue that I realised that jelly in the US means jam for us Europeans. The equivalent for (European) jelly in the US is jello (thanks geeky). In the US jam is jelly (US jelly) with the fruit pieces in it.

Yesterday was quite a crazy day. Milan lost to Manchester United 3-2 at Old Trafford but that was hardly the main event of the day.

Erudite

Mon, 02 Apr 2007 21:31:48 GMT

It's been a while since I posted a word. Today I came across the word erudite in the ever-hilarious Twenty Major blog's post.

Word: erudite
Meaning: characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly (Dictionary.com)
Usage: I hate the way I’m portrayed as this odorous retard instead of the erudite and quite fragrant person I really am.
Synonyms: knowledgeable, scholastic, intellectual

Poignant, Adroit, Loiter

Wed, 01 Nov 2006 06:39:24 GMT

Word: poignant
Meaning:

keenly distressing to the feelings: poignant regret
keen or strong in mental appeal: a subject of poignant interest
affecting or moving the emotions: a poignant scene.
pungent to the smell: poignant cooking odours.
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

Synonyms: intense, bitter, heartfelt

Word: adroit
Meaning:

expert or nimble in the use of the hands or body
cleverly skillful, resourceful or ingenious: an adroit debater
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary)

Synonyms: skillful, clever, apt, deft

Word: loiter
Meaning:

To stand idly about; linger aimlessly
To proceed slowly or with many stops: loitered all the way home.
To delay or dawdle: loiter over a task.
(The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Synonyms: waste time, wait, linger
Usage: The high school students like to loiter in the Central Square.

Gloat: Definition

Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:15:07 GMT

Word: gloat
Meaning:

To feel or express great, often malicious, pleasure or self-satisfaction. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language)

Synonyms: crow, brag
Usage: Don't gloat over your rival's misfortune.